Friday, April 14, 2006

Advertising Driven Video Games

I am both intrigued and amazed at the lengths advertisers will go to to get their message in front of the consumer. While talking to a "principles" class the other day, I showed new advertising messages being printed on the white lines between parking spaces in parking lots.

Today I read on AdAge.com that a former Maxim editor-in-chief is working on advertisements embedded in video games. This is not a new concept, and I once worked on a research project on this topic with my colleague Byung-ho Park.

But this new concept is different. The game is called "The DinoHunters."

AdAge.com writes, "The new game, which will be free to play and funded by advertisers, follows a group of time-traveling hunters who bring modern weapons into the past for prehistoric safaris -- and have their progress filmed by a TV show on the fictional Total Hunting Channel. To pay the bills, the show requires its stars -- that is, the people who play the game -- to film commercials for its real-world sponsors during their expeditions."

It seems magazines just were not getting through to young males, so perhaps video games will get the message across.